Monthly Archives: July 2012

This is Joy from Candamar Designs; it’s part of a series of Feng Shui designs. I liked working on it, but there were some issues. The kit came with 14 count aida, but there were fractional stitches in the pattern, not mentioned in the key or instructions. Half stitches were described and shown, but the picture showed three-quarter stitches. I had to check the picture for the orientation of the three-quarter stitches and found some discrepancies between the chart and the picture; mostly, I followed the picture where they were different. Some of the french knots were not shown on the chart. The metallic thread used in the word “Joy” and the back stitching around the character was flat, so it was difficult to get it to lay flat; it also had two very fine threads along with it that stripped easily and I eventually stripped them before I started a new length. The metallic thread did not knot as much as other types of thread, though.

This is from the creepy cross-stitch kit. I used DMC’s glow-in-the-dark thread (Light Effects E940) instead of the provided cream. The glow-in-the-dark thread is apparently polyester; it just felt weird. It had a tendency to fray and separate and get uneven really easily; I had to cut the ends off every time the needle was unthreaded.